UConn President Susan Herbst will welcome Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and Senate President Pro Tempore Donald E. Williams Jr. to Storrs Thursday for a formal signing of the legislation approving the creation of world-class technology park at UConn. They also will make a major announcement regarding the launch of the project.
The ceremonial gathering will take place at 3:30 p.m. in the courtyard of the BioScience Complex off Route 195. All faculty, staff, and students are invited to attend.
Joining Herbst at the event will be Board of Trustees Chairman Lawrence D. McHugh, Provost Peter Nicholls, and Vice-President of Research Suman Singha. Also attending will be the deans of the School of Engineering, School of Pharmacy, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
The technology park is planned for a 300-acre parcel off North Hillside Road behind the existing UConn Public Safety Complex and the University’s tennis courts. It is expected to be completed in four years and to generate hundreds of new jobs during the design and construction phase. Once built, the initial tech park anchor facility – known as the Innovation Partnership Building – will provide large, flexible-use laboratories to top academic researchers and industry scientists looking to advance technologies that lead to new product development and commercialization.
The research and technological advances generated through the UConn tech park are expected to enhance Connecticut’s global competiveness and secure UConn’s position as a national leader in advanced high-tech innovation and research among public universities.
The park’s laboratories will feature highly-specialized equipment not readily available to industry. The park is designed to encourage the development of start-up companies, as world-class University researchers and scholars recruited through a new “Innovation Partners Eminent Faculty Program” work side-by-side with top industry scientists and business entrepreneurs to explore innovative ideas in manufacturing and advanced product development in such areas as aerospace, defense, biotechnology, energy, and the environment.
